“Damn you, Bridget. I am not taking you to prison. I am trying to help you.”
She shook free of him, seeking to put some necessary distance between them. She could not think when his skin was upon hers, when he stroked her with the soft seduction of a lover. When the anguish in his expression pierced her heart like the blade of a sword.
She stalked to the opposite end of the narrow chamber, arms wrapped protectively around herself, before turning back to face him. “Perhaps I do not want your help, Leo. Has that occurred to you?”
It was not true, for she would love his help. But she feared he would not give it, and if she revealed everything to him, he could use it against her. As it stood, all she had to protect herself with was the answers he wanted. If she gave them to him, she would be defenseless.
He remained where she had left him, his bearing stiff, his mien grim. “Tell me one thing, if you please. Why do you keep their secrets for them?”
Because she did not dare to trust him entirely. Because he was her ruin, her downfall, her only weakness, and her every sin. Because she owed her brother loyalty and love. Because she could not turn her back on him.
But she said none of those things. Her heart hammered away, her palms damp, her mouth dry. “Because I must. I swore an oath to them, and I keep my word.”
Even from across the room, his anger was as palpable as a lash. “I am your husband. What of the vows you made to me? Will you not keep your word to me?”
She swallowed, unable to answer. He stalked toward her, a storm of a man, tall and broad and powerful, and enraged. There was nowhere for her to run, no means of escape, so she remained where she was, chin high.
“You said you were falling in love with me,” he reminded her. “You claim to trust me. Are you a liar, Bridget Carlisle?”
“O’Malley,” she corrected miserably.
“Carlisle,” he gritted back, his lip curling. “Do you not realize you are more mine than theirs? Do you not realize I am the man who has saved you from prison, perhaps even from the gallows? That I would do anything to keep you safe from harm?”
She wanted to be Bridget Carlisle. How she wished she could be. How she wanted to fall into him. To make him hers always, rather than for the handful of enchanted days she had been fortunate enough to know.
“My brother is in Kilmainham Gaol,” she said suddenly, startling even herself by broaching the topic of Cullen.
“I am aware.” His gaze turned assessing. “He is being held along with the other Phoenix Park plotters who assassinated the Duke of Burghly. Are you telling me you had something to do with the plotting?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. I had no notion of what was about to happen. Nor did my brother. Cullen feels strongly for the cause, but he is a lad. Practically a babe. He would never conspire to hurt anyone, let alone to kill so viciously.”
She suppressed a shudder at the newspaper reports she had seen concerning the murders. The assassins had used surgical knives to slash the Chief Secretary of Ireland and his undersecretary to death in Phoenix Park when the men had been innocently walking along. A handful of men had been arrested for the crimes, and she had known them all. One was her own brother.
“The evidence against him is undeniable,” Leo said calmly, his countenance softening.
“Nothing is undeniable,” she argued staunchly. She believed in Cullen’s innocence.
The other men, also men she had known, were harder sorts. They were older, harsher, more touched by life’s bitterness than her brother. Two of them were battle-hardened Americans who had fought in that country’s civil war. They were men who had already killed hundreds of times before.
Cullen was different. He was sweet and kind and good. His only guilt was in loving his country far too much, and in falling into the company of the wrong sort of men. From the moment of his arrest, she had never faltered in her belief he was innocent.
“I know you want to believe the best of him because he is your brother, but he has been inextricably linked to the plotters. There is nothing you can do for him now, Bridget.”
The tiny bud of hope inside her shriveled into a desiccated husk. This was precisely the response she had expected from him. The response she had feared. “What if there was something you could do for him, Leo? Could you help him? Would you be willing to do so for me?”
“I wish I could, but I am a mere man, and I have precious little influence in Dublin where he is incarcerated. Even were I inclined to offer him aid, I do not think it would make a difference. I am familiar with the case against both him and the other conspirators. You must prepare yourself for the worst, I am afraid.”
She nearly doubled over at Leo’s words. They were not hard or cutting, not cold or biting. Instead, they were soothing. Sympathetic. As if he truly hated denying her. As if he truly cared. And she could not bear that. Because he was also telling her she had no other choice, that the last path left to her was the selfsame path that had brought her to Leo in the first place. The path that had made her his wife. The path that had made her lose her heart.
He would have her heart forever.
But she would not have him.
Bridget swallowed down the bile. Loss was a terrible monster, and she had not been prepared to lose Leo yet. In truth, she would not be ready to lose him ever. He was a fine man, an honorable man, who shouldered duty and responsibility with equal aplomb. Who never faltered. She would miss him. God, how she would miss him.
“You…are certain?” she asked, struggling to gather her emotions and her words. “Cullen, he is a lad of eighteen. Our mother died when he was a wee one, and I have been mother to him for so many years. He depends upon me. He needs me.”
“I am sorry, darling. Justice must be had for the men whose blood was spilled that day. I know you do not want to believe it, but the facts are incontrovertible. He was one of the conspirators.” Leo folded her in his arms then, and although everything between them had just changed forever, she held him back as if he were the only anchor keeping her from being swept away by a raging tide. In a way, he was. He had become necessary to her. He was beloved. He was the husband of her heart.
